Japanese Laid Open Patent Application No. H02-271073, filed Apr. 12, 1989, and published Nov. 6, 1990, relates to the starting of an internal combustion engine. Disclosed is a cylinder-direct injection-type engine in which, when the engine is not running, an engine cylinder is detected in which the piston is past upper dead center and has been stopped before the cylinder exhaust process has begun. The engine is started by igniting combustion in the detected cylinder by fuel injection without using a separate starting means (hereinafter simply referred to as the “starter”) such as a cell motor or a recoil starter.
In the above-described engine, however, the temperature of the combustion chamber inside the cylinder at starting (ignition) is not taken into account. The vaporization rate of the injected fuel changes depending on the temperature of the combustion chamber, and therefore, in the above-described engine, the vapor mixing ratio in the combustion chamber differs depending on its internal temperature at starting.